


Scar Patterns

by Sonora



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Developing Relationship, Frottage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:15:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even Hitler had a soul mate.  </p><p>Not that Ressler takes much comfort from that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar Patterns

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this, umm... today. So there might be a few things that need to be fleshed out. Let me know!
> 
> (I'm not sure about canon ages, and some of Reddington's timeline is kind of fucked up anyway, so go with me on the ages?)

Although he tells everyone his whole young life that he doesn’t recall how or when it happened - _it happened in the middle of the night, I was young, wasn’t traumatic at all, I’m fine, it’s fine, honestly, I don’t fucking care_ \- the memory is seared into his brain. 

Spring, 1991. Seven years old. Waking up in a panic, skin on fire, pain blasting out from his left palm, too intense for him to even scream for his parents. Lasted for hours, it seemed, although it couldn’t have been that long. He threw up all over his bed, snot and tears dripping down his face as he clutched it to his chest, sobs coming in huge, heaving breaths. Hurt worse than when he broke his leg the year before, falling out of a tree. Hurt worse than anything he’d ever feel again, even if he didn’t know that at the time.

The first wave of fire eventually passed, enough for him to get to his feet and stumble down to his parents’ bedroom, and settled to a dull resignation as his mother - Dad out on night shift again - pulled his hand away from his body and gently worked his bloodless knuckles open.

“Oh honey,” she’d whispered, vast sorrow in the words. “Oh baby, come here...”

Ressler had curled up in her arms and cried himself to sleep.

He knew a little bit about soulmates at that point - Mom and Dad had been mated, after all - but didn’t understand the full significance of what the name on his palm had meant. Much less its loss.

He understands it now.

As a kid, it just meant that there was a weird scar on his hand. The morning after he ruined his sheets, his palm had gone bright red. It looked like bad sunburn, maybe, except it didn’t peel and didn’t sting. After a few weeks, it faded to a series of weird splotches the same color as his freckles, darker in places. It was puffy at first, but settled eventually to nothing but dull texture. It hurt sometimes, phantom pains that didn’t feel like his, but even those faded to nothing after the first two months. The marks spread during that time, too, wrapping around the back of his hand and up his fingers, so by the time it was done, Ressler could barely remember the place where his mate’s name had been.

He knew then he should forget. Like Dad said; _this doesn’t define you_. The boy whose name had been on his palm was gone forever. Even if they met now, there’d be no chance of the bond forming. Probably. That’s what happens when somebody rejects you. You don’t get a choice in the matter.

There was no point in remembering somebody who didn’t want him.

But he couldn’t forget that name.

His seven year old self hadn’t wanted to forget, not understanding why another boy who he’d never met wouldn’t want to be his friend, and so he took a photo out of the family photo album before Mom could throw it away.

The one she’d taken - proudly, he’d thought at the time, leaden with grief - when he was about eight months old. Right after his first word. When your soulmate’s name formed fully, provided you were one of the lucky ones who was born with little squiggles on your palm already.

_Raymond Reddington_

It’s not a common name. Ressler always knew that. From what he’s been able to tell with basic research on the Internet, there are maybe only four or five in the whole country. He’s been looking forward to looking it up in the FBI’s systems, once he gets done with Quantico, gets his first real assignment.

He had never imagined it was a name that would come up in class. That he’d have any sort of answer as to who hated him so much as to do this to him.

But it had, and he had, and it was all he can do to keep himself in his chair as the instructor hands out the sample case files for the day. A grainy black and white photo up on the projection screen; an older man in black aviators and a hideously expensive suit, on some airstrip in Colombia.

“...now this week, for our case review, we’re going to continue the theme of where international crime intersects with terrorism. Since September Eleventh, the Bureau has been increasingly focused on this topic, working with everybody from the military to ICE to the CIA to bring these criminals to justice. We’re going to review some of the rising stars of the criminal underworld before moving on to the big fish. So,” and the instructor drops a file in front of Ressler, “I want to foot stomp this right now, before we dive into this case, that although Raymond Reddington would tell you he’s a man without a country, he still very much holds American citizenship and he’s still very capable of standing trial in an American court room. That is, of course, unless the Russians get him first.”

A chuckle spreads throughout the room, but Ressler just feels queasy. Stomach acid burning in his throat. His hands shake, palms clammy inside his fingerless business gloves, as he flips it open and rifles through it. His heart pounds. 

There’s a handwriting sample in here. Taken from one of Reddington’s many, many military forms. Which means his name is both printed and signed.

Ressler knows he shouldn’t. He knows it doesn’t mean anything. Some people’s names are written in typeface; others, in childhood scrawl that only corrects after you meet for the first time. But his was a very nice cursive, clean. Older. But being born with a name on you already generally meant your mate was older - born before you - so...

It was a signature.

He knows he shouldn’t.

He can’t take materials out of the classroom, but he does anyway. Pockets the handwriting sample sheet and walks out with it at the end of the day. 

It takes him a few hours to find the old photograph in his cramped Virginia apartment, a tiny five hundred square feet of efficiency that might as well be an FBI trainee dorm, for how many of his classmates live in the same building, how the landlords make their money. He didn’t own much in college and he hasn’t added much now, too busy with training to be bothered to go to IKEA on the weekends. When he gets weekends. Still, he has so much shit to dig through that his heart is racing by the time he finally has the faded proof in his hands.

_Raymond Reddington._

The handwriting, a perfect match. Perfect.

Ressler sits on the floor for fuck only knows how long, staring at it, realization congealing in his brain.

His soulmate’s a criminal. And not just a criminal, but a traitor, if what they talked about in class today is true. Anapolis grad, highly decorated naval intelligence officer, gone rouge for reasons nobody understands. A man who’s been linked to terrorism, expanded drug routes through Mexico and out of Afghanistan, illegal sales of nuclear material, murders...fifteen suspected murders, to be exact, but the suspected thing, in this instance, doesn’t mean shit. Just that they don’t have enough evidence to charge him.

And that was just the _My First Bible (with Illustrations)_ version of this fucker’s file. This is just what they think the trainees can handle. The _un_ classified shit.

Chuckle? 

No, Ressler wants to laugh until he throws up.

+++++

Having an answer, even a partial answer that doesn’t explain anything at all, makes things... clear.

Since the morning Ressler woke up with a ruined palm and parents who had no idea how to comfort him, he’s tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter. That it didn’t hurt him. Who cared about soulmates anyway? It was stupid, ridiculous, a dumb old thing that science can’t explain, so how is it even real even?

“Stop crying, Mom,” he told his mother over cinnamon rolls that first morning, a breakfast treat she only even made on the weekends, his favorite. He’d tried to be firm; it hurt him to see her so upset. “I can make my own friends. I don’t need my hand to tell me that.”

She’d kissed his head, and said she was proud of him.

He didn’t understand then, though. 

It hadn’t been until Sex Ed in sixth grade, when an anonymous question in the teacher’s bucket was _can you have sex with somebody who isn’t your name on your hand?_ that he started to get an idea how just how deep his mate’s betrayal went.

When one of his buddies mated their senior year of high school, he had a front-row seat to the depth of a bond he’d never get to have himself.

When he lost his virginity, sophomore year of college, he didn’t bother spending the night with his boyfriend. Just went back to his own dorm room and laid in his own bed and tried to tell himself that the only reason he felt hollow was because it was bad sex. That unmated sex would be, was, is, just as good. That his expectations had just been too high, that he needed to stop watching so much porn or whatever.

Ressler’s spent his whole life trying to explain away the violence that was done to him as a child. Tried to pretend like it wasn’t a problem. He can make his own choices in who he spends his life with.

Or who he doesn’t.

Because he doesn’t have anybody right now. Doesn’t want anybody. Not right now. 

He’s apparently emotionally and mentally compatible with, the literal _other half_ of, a criminal who’s just... evil. 

_Even Hitler had a soulmate,_ he tries to tell himself that night, getting drunk in his apartment alone, but that’s little comfort. Hitler’s soulmate was fucking Joseph Goebbels. _Goebbels._

So what, Ressler wonders, does this make him?

In the end, there’s nothing he can do but get up in the morning, take a cold shower, pop some Tylenol for the headache and go back to class.

They’re on to somebody else today, a Canadian woman with links to money laundering in the Middle East, the same operation that’s funding al Qaeda, and he’s grateful for that. Raymond Reddington may not be on the same level as Hitler - and how arrogant, Ressler tells himself, to even go there with a comparison like that - but he is what he is and the sooner Ressler can forget about this, the better.

Ressler knows he should burn the photograph of his hand.

He should.

He doesn’t.

What haunts him, what’s going to torture him, he just _knows_ , is that no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never be better than Reddington. That this is a black hole that will someday suck him in and devour him.

His soulmate’s a mass murderer.

How is he supposed to live with that?

+++++

Ressler would like to think that he doesn’t throw himself into his first assignment with reckless abandon. He’s not a reckless guy, after all. Methodical and careful, that’s what Dad says good investigative work is all about, and Ressler is always careful. He’s always methodical, sometimes working fourteen, fifteen hour days.

He’d like to think he makes a name for himself in the Dallas field office as the guy who can find the patterns, work the evidence until it gives up whatever it’s hiding.

But honestly, what gets his name on the Director’s desk is his participation in a joint operation with AFT and DHS down in Laredo. Over a month undercover. Six hundred kilos of pure Colombian cocaine. Ten arrests.

Three dead bodies, bullets fired from Ressler’s side-arm lodged in their skulls. What was left of their skulls.

“I’m supposed to discipline you about those head shots,” the Director says, when Ressler is summoned, “but since we’re talking about cartel foot soldiers, I’m going to assume that you assumed they were wearing body armor.”

“Thank you, sir,” he says, trying to keep his eyes up. His hand is itching; it’s been itching since last night, since he took those shots. Ressler’s pretty sure it’s psychosomatic, but he can’t be sure.

“How are you holding up?”

“The perps were attempting to...”

“I’ve read all the reports. I know what they were doing, and IA is satisfied that you acted in defense of yourself and your fellow agents. I’m asking, how are you doing?”

Ressler wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. He’d been working with the guys he killed for weeks. It hadn’t been a clean fight, there at the end. The first three shots he’d gotten off easy, but after that... everything had seemed very clear, in the heat of the moment. Very simple. He’d thrown up out the patrol car window on the way back to the police station, but that was about it. It aches in the back of his mind, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget their faces, but he doesn’t regret pulling the trigger. 

He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to regret it. 

He doesn’t know if this is whatever Reddington would have loved in him, taking control right now.

“It was self-defense, sir.”

“It’s Bureau policy that you see a shrink, so I expect you to get that done this week.”

He bites his lip, tried to smile, that easy smile that normally gets him what he wants. “Sir, I’m not a huge fan of...”

“Yeah, neither am I. But I need you to go check that box for me.” And the Director passes him a folder. “You’ve done a lot of good work this year, and considering the success of this op, I’m putting you in for a commendation.”

“Thank you, sir.” He opens the folder, half expecting he needs to fill out another couple of forms, provide some input for that award, but this. “This is an application, sir.?

“I’m nominating you for a special tactics course. Some joint effort down at Fort Bragg. If we get the slots, you’re going. But you gotta go see the shrink and get cleared for it first, you understand me?”

Wouldn’t do, losing an opportunity like that. Having that kind of training on your record opens a hell of a lot of doors. 

He makes the appointment with the psychologist for that afternoon.

It’s not what he was expecting. She mostly just wants to chat. Doesn’t ask him much of anything about the shooting, but wants to know about his family and his stress level and how he’s doing with his first year as a Special Agent. He answers her questions as best he can, feeling pretty decent about the whole thing, actually, until she nods at his gloves.

“It says in your record that you’re blank.”

“I don’t really see how this is relevant...”

“There are quite a few people, even today, that view Blanks as expendable,” she says firmly. “Including Blanks themselves. Nobody to leave behind, nobody to be hurt by your death. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“It’s never crossed my mind.”

“Never?”

“Lady, look,” and he tugs the glove off, holding up his disfigured palm, “he did this to me. He doesn’t want me, so I live my life for myself now. I don’t have a death wish. I stopped caring about this a long time ago.”

She nods, considering. “How old were you?”

“Old enough to make peace with it. Not that it’s any of your business.”

She lets him go after that.

He goes to training.

Picks up another course at Quantico.

Gets himself assigned to the organized crime desk in New York City.

Racks up more investigations, more undercover work, more arrests, more commendations.

And then, on his second trip to For Bragg - as an instructor this time - he gets an offer.

+++++

Fayetteville is a shit hole. Worse than Laredo, which Ressler wouldn’t have thought possible last year, but hey, the American South is full of surprises.

Bobby still manages to find a nice restaurant in all that Third World detritus. Takes him out. Buys him dinner.

Says he’s in charge of putting together a task force. That he’s heard nothing but good things about Ressler’s record and he needs somebody energetic, somebody young, who’s proven that he doesn’t buckle under pressure and isn’t tied down.

Bobby says that’s about Ressler being single; Ressler can’t help but wonder if it about being Blank.

(He’s tried to start thinking about himself this way, since the conversation with that shrink in Dallas; it hurts a hell of a lot less. Not that it hurts at all.)

“Who’s the target?” Ressler asks.

“Raymond Reddington. Heard of him?”

Ressler’s got a pretty good poker face by now, and shrugs. “Everybody’s heard of him. He made the Most Wanted list this year, didn’t he?”

“The Most Wanted list’s nothing but a popularity contest. He’s been on our radar for years.” Bobby seems like a good guy. A little jaded, but so are most of Dad’s friends; law enforcement does that to you. Doesn’t bother Ressler any. He’s sure he’ll be there himself someday.

“So we’re going out there to arrest him?”

“We’re goin’ out there to kill him,” Bobby says bluntly, and gives Ressler a hard once-over. “That bother you?”

It should. It would - as in, Ressler wouldn’t have a choice, wouldn’t want a choice - if Reddington hadn’t thrown him away.

“No,” he says, and finishes his beer.

+++++

Years later, Ressler has Reddington in his sites. Literally, in his sites. The back of his fucking hat. Right in the middle of a crowded Brussels train station. He can make the shot - Bobby is screaming over the comms for him _to take the fucking shot already_.

Reddington turns around, expression suddenly pensive, like he knows he’s being watched. Like he’s _looking_.

_Like he’s looking for you._

Heart in his throat, Ressler tries.

He does.

But his hand starts throbbing and his blood goes hot and he feels like he’s going to pass out. He’s lived for years with this knowledge, that someday, this job would bring him here, to this point, this moment, this opportunity to stop all the things that Reddington does, all the misery he spreads, and here he is.

Ressler can’t do it.

He can’t breath.

“Can’t get a clean angle,” he gasps, pressing the talk button at his ear. “Too many people.”

Bobby starts to say something, but Ressler doesn’t care.

He switches his radio off. Slumps against the railing, eyes closed, breathing hard, skin clammy. Trying to calm the raging panic that’s sweeping through him.

He almost shot his mate, his soulmate, his, his, his _everything_...

But as Ressler fights that down, as his heart slows, adrenaline draining, he can think rationally again.

He can.

There’s no connection between them. Not since Reddington set it on fire. Destroyed any chance Ressler had of finding some measure of contentment in this world. There’s _no_ connection.

Next time, Ressler tells himself, he’ll be ready for this.

Next time, he’ll make the shot.

This’ll be over. This will all be over.

He’ll finally be free.

+++++

It’s not fair, Ressler thinks in his more vulnerable moments, that Reddington gets to be so damn callous about this, while he can’t seem to move past it.

That Reddington is traipsing all over the world, eating and drinking and killing and fucking (because yeah, Ressler’s got a roster of the criminal’s known bedmates) and generally making merry, and Ressler is stuck here.

In a small apartment, in Georgetown.

With his world falling apart.

_Don,_

_I didn’t mean to find this. I never pushed you to tell me about this and while I’d like to think that it was purely out of love, honestly, I never wanted to know. You know I love you. I would never judge you based off him. But despite all you’ve said about never wanting to find the mate who did this to you, you’ve been pursuing him this whole time without a word to me. I think it’s your way of being close to himself, without giving up that good man you are. You’ve been lying to me though, and I know now I’ll never be your priority. Don, I love you, but I have to go._

_Goodbye._

There are water spots on the paper.

The old photograph was paperclipped to it.

He found it in the place where her clothes used to be.

Ressler should have been free to make his own choices. Live his own life. Love who he wanted to love. If anything should have come out of this disaster on his palm, it should have been that.

But Reddington’s taken this as well.

Reddington does nothing but take from him.

Twenty-three years of this shit.

Ressler is so, so tired of it.

He knows he should burn the photograph. He desperately wants to. 

It won’t free him, though, and it won’t redeem what Reddington’s done.

It shouldn’t matter. Except it just cost him Audrey. 

So after half an hour of holding it a little too far above a candle, he sets it back down on the kitchen counter and goes out in search of booze.

Getting drunk seems to be the right thing to do at the moment.

+++++

There are any number of federal statutes that explicitly protect soulmates’ rights. A bonded pair can’t be coerced to testify against each other. They can’t be used as leverage against each other. Any action taken by one mate towards a perpetrator who hurt or killed their mate is automatically listed as self-defense and can’t be prosecuted. Rape laws, self-defense laws, family law... all of it gives primacy to bonded pairings. It’s literally written into the Bill of Rights. Ressler’s had it beat into him since the first day of college.

So yeah, he knows it constitutes an illegal search, a violation of Reddington’s fucking Constitutional rights, to ask what he’s asking.

Which might be why Reddington’s in there, just smirking. 

“And who am I talking to?” he asks cheerfully.

Ressler depresses the intercom button again. “Let me repeat myself. You were ordered to strip to bare skin. Everything. Off. That includes your gloves.”

“You did arrest me half an hour ago, but you never introduced yourself. And it’s such a shame, a big cut of prime American meat like yourself, hiding behind this ridiculous one-way glass.” Reddington walks right up to the window, tapping on it with a gloved finger. “What’s your name?”

Deep red leather, supple and expensive. He always wears red gloves. Right now, they’re the only thing he’s wearing. Ressler doesn’t want to ever think about that. Doesn’t want to look. Doesn’t want to let himself imagine - as he has over the past few years - what it could have been like for them, had Reddington not gone off the reservation, if Reddington wasn’t a murdering psychopath, if Reddington wasn’t the sort of _wrong_ who rejected a little boy who’d done nothing to him but hope. 

“Gloves off. We need to take your prints.”

“And that’s without so much as a set of those little paper privacy do-hickies, now really? Isn’t that illegal?”

“You can have a set after you take the ones you’re wearing off.”

“I assume you’re going to be interrogating me as soon as this whole silly little vetting process is over. Why leave the introductions to later?”

“You are the one who walked into my house and surrendered yourself,” Ressler snaps, sick of this already. Five years he spent chasing this asshole, lost Audrey, only to have the task force dissolved a couple months ago with nothing at all to show for his efforts, and Reddington decides to walk in today? Just like that? Fuck him. Ressler hasn’t had enough coffee yet to deal with this crap. He’s got a headache already. “You are not in charge here.”

Reddington huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “I know it's you, the boy who's been hunting me. That voice of yours goes with your pretty looks,” he says conversationally, and smirks. Lifts his hand to his lips. “Never did catch your name though.”

“Gloves,” Ressler growls because yeah, the man who threw him away _as a goddamn child_ has absolutely no right to flirt with him now.

“Name.”

And Ressler wavers...

He breaks.

“Special Agent Donald Ressler. I’ve had your case for years. I know all your tricks, Reddington. Can’t risk you hiding a lockpick in there.”

The master criminal, his mate, pulls them off with his teeth. Eyes on the window. Drops the gloves and slaps his palms flat on the glass. 

Both palms are empty. Completely clean. Free of burns, tattoos, cuts, skin graphs, or anything else that could be interpreted as rejection scarring.

Nothing to indicate he had ever had a name there to begin with.

How in the hell...

Ressler wonders, for an oddly terrifying second, if he's been wrong all these years. If Reddington's not...

“That satisfy your curiosity, Agent?” he smiles.

“Blank,” Ressler replies, hoping his voice isn’t shaking. He knows, knows in his bones. This is the man the universe made him for. The man who threw him away. The mate he'll never have. “I’ll make a note in your file.”

“You do that,” Reddington replies, cheery again.

Ressler storms out of the interrogation room.

He needs air.

+++++

Post Office staffing is, at best, ad hoc. Ressler’s been on the counter-terrorism desk since March, Director Cooper got pulled out of the white collar crime division, Keen gets reassigned from profiling. At Reddington’s request.

Because of course this is how it would work.

He finally meets his soulmate face to face, and the man hates him. Holds nothing for him but disdain, showering affection on that goddamn rookie while mocking Ressler at every turn.

It shouldn’t hurt.

Still does.

The last time he was home, months back, Ressler had had to give his mom the news about Audrey leaving him. And in a moment of weakness, admitted that he’d met his soulmate. He didn’t tell her that it was the same guy he’d been hunting for the past five years, but Dad would have kicked his ass for that.

“And even now, he doesn’t want you?” his mother had said incredulously. “Have you even talked to him about it?”

“I can’t. He’s... he’s not anybody you’d want me bringing home to dinner.”

“Don, I would love for your mate to come home for dinner.”

“Thing is, I kind of hate this guy.”

“Oh honey, that’s the way it is,” she’d told him. “Hate’s still love, in its own way. If you didn’t feel anything for him, that’s how you’d know.”

Indifference.

Reddington’s indifference _cuts_.

So Ressler knows he’s a bit of a bitch. About this Blacklist thing. About Keen. About everything Reddington fucking says...

But today is worse than most. And not just because Ressler spent eight hours on a plane with the man. (Pretending to sleep, so they didn’t have to talk, so he didn’t say something stupid; Reddington had hugged him in that damn bar, _touched_ him and smiled at him and talked to him as if they were friends and it aches in places Ressler didn't even know he had. Aches in his palms. What he would do for a little gentleness, genuine affection. What he would do to not _need_ it so terribly, horribly bad.)

“...why not let them have me, Donald? I’ll likely be tortured for weeks and left to rot until they finally deign to put a bullet in my skull. Wouldn’t that please you?”

Fucking mercenaries. Fucking Reddington. And fuck the panic those words send through him. 

It is the first time, however, that Reddington’s spoken to him with anything approaching the same resigned weariness that Ressler feels himself. The same disappointment.

Ressler’s answer is a lie.

Then he gets shot in the leg.

For a few horrible minutes, Ressler is sure that his mate’s going to leave him in the hallway to die. And yes, having his leg shredded by a shotgun, it still hurts less than having his mark burned off. 

It feels good to be touched though. Even now. It feels good to be touched by his mate.

He drifts on the sound of Reddington’s voice for a while.

“Donald, I’m going to quietly cross my fingers before I ask, but what blood type are you?”

Hell. Soulmates usually have the same blood type. Why does Reddington feel the need to rub this in even more? Isn’t it enough, the act he puts on in public with everyone else? Like he doesn’t completely understand what he’s done? “B-negative.”

“And you thought we had nothing in common. There’s only two percent of us you know.”

Ressler doesn’t have the strength to tell him to shut the fuck up. “What are you doing?”

“You need a blood transfusion. Or we’re going to have to open that door which will likely be the end of both of us.”

Right. Because Reddington’s in this for himself. Anslo had offered earlier...but Reddington doesn’t care about him.

Another monologue. More bullshit. More lies. 

Ressler lets it go.

Surprised that Reddington’s offering this much.

“You really going to do a field transfusion?” 

“Oh come now Donald. Think of how much smarter you’ll be afterwards.”

Reddington is banding his upper arm. Pulling off his glove, but that’s only about making sure his fingers don’t swell up or... or something. It’s a first aid thing, Ressler knows that.

Reddington’s thumb only slides across his rejection mark out of curiosity. Reddington’s fingers are only careful on his blood-starved skin because this is a task for which precision is needed.

Reddington is always precise. It’s what makes him so damn deadly.

The needle hurts as it slides into his arm, but it feels _good_ too; Reddington’s taken his gloves off for this. Bare fingers, bare palms. Did one of those ever say _Donald Ressler_? Has Reddington ever cared?

“Why the hell are you doing this?” he asks, a hopeless laugh in the words. “It’s pretty obvious I hate your guts, and I can’t imagine you hold a whole lot of warmth for me.” Too close to what he really feels; Ressler closes his eyes. “Especially after... hearing about Brussels.”

“I knew about Brussels,” Reddington says. Like it doesn’t bother him at all. Like he doesn’t know the man who is - was - his soulmate tried to kill him. Like it’s okay. No different from any other attempt on his life.

There really is no way to save them, is there? Reddington never wanted him at all.

“Then why save me?" Donald mutters, trying to bite back the shame welling up in his chilling body; how worthless must a man be for an international criminal to not want him as a mate? Not that he needs Reddington's approval; he doesn't, he fucking does not.

“That’s what you do when someone is dying in front of you.”

Nothing. No affection. No confession. Nothing but another goddamn monologue about how betrayal is inevitable so who the fuck cares about anything?

Nothing.

Ressler feels like something just crawled into his chest and died.

Later - after Anslo very graphically outlines how Ressler’s going to die but Reddington risks everything to save Keen, after surgery, after nobody comes to see him - Ressler realizes what it was.

It was hope.

Like an idiot, he’s been letting himself hope.

+++++

Audrey comes back to him, god only knows how. She hasn’t been on his next-of kin list in years. He took care of that the day after she walked out of his life. She’s engaged now - she never has found her mate and never did care to look - but says she wants to talk.

Talk.

There’s nothing to talk about.

“I’m done with him,” he promises her as he’s laying there in that hideously uncomfortable hospital bed. “I’ve been off the task force for a long time. It’s over. He’s... it’s over. I want you.”

She smiles. Winds her fingers through his own. 

A month later, she’s moving back in.

Three months later, she’s dying in his arms in the street.

Reddington sends Ressler her murderer’s head in a box, but he sends it with Dembe. Doesn’t come himself. Doesn’t involve himself much at all.

Just offers yet more proof of the fact that he’s a murdering psychopath.

Ressler starts dreaming about Reddington. 

Starts touching himself to the memory of Reddington naked in the interrogation room.

It’s his right as mate, but it still makes him feel dirty. Especially since he really, really needs to stop thinking of himself that way.

Reddington doesn't want him for... some reason.

There just aren’t any answers.

He’d like this to be over. He’d like to be done with this hollowness where his heart should be. And he’s got plenty of painkillers in his bathroom, left over from his damn surgery...

He settles for taking them one pill at a time.

One at a time.

It takes the edge off... everything. Doesn’t stop the ache in his heart, but does move it back, away, off into the darkness where he can’t feel it.

Numbs everything. 

It’s not an answer. But it helps.

+++++

“I thought for a second we might lose you back there,” Keen’s telling him.

Things are still fuzzy. Not so fuzzy he can’t do his job, but still. Fuzzy. 

Ressler’s been trying to read up on what happens to people are rejected in childhood by their soulmates. He never wanted to know before. Now, somehow, it doesn’t bother him. Everyone knows what happens to people whose mates die - they die of shock, or kill themselves, or simply stop eating, fade away - and rejection after meeting, after bonding - like withdrawal, like coming down from the most painful high ever. But it’s incredibly rare that somebody openly rejects it prior to that first meeting. 

Some of the stuff Ressler’s been reading claims it’s not possible. Some stuff says it’s easier than doing it after meeting.

But Reddington doesn’t have any scars.

Rejection always begins and ends with scars. No matter how or when it happens. 

And if it was all gone, like the science says it should be, then why couldn’t Ressler kill him? Why does the sarcastic indifference still hurt like it does?

Sometimes, he thinks he’s going crazy. That he’s hallucinated this entire thing. That if he looks down at his palm right now, the name will still be there. Or his skin will be clean. Or that it will be Audrey. Or a hundred other options that hurt less than the reality in front of him.

“The prospect of having to live without me must have been terrifying,” he replies, not really sure what else to say. Like it’s any of her business. Like it’s her job to care about him.

(In some ways, very real ways, he feels obligated to her. Some instinct he can’t place. Reddington cares more about her than he does about his own mate. That’s obvious. But the more time Ressler spends around Reddington, the harder it is to shake his influence, his presence, the _need_. So maybe what’s important to Reddington has become important to him. Ressler doesn’t know. He resents it and loves it at the same time. At least looking after her is something he can do for Reddington. Ressler hates looking at it too closely. Makes him feel dirty. Makes him feel ashamed.) 

But he hasn’t put his gloves back on yet - they took them off of him at that fake hospital thing - and he can very clearly see her eyes sweeping over his open, bare palms. He’s never let her see this before. He’s never told any of them. 

He can see the wheels turning in her head.

She thinks it’s Audrey’s name that’s gone. Sometimes a violent death, severe trauma, leaves scarring too.

“It was,” she says evenly.

And if she’s telling him not to kill himself, if she thinks that’s what’s wrong with him, she can go fuck herself. Reddington’s given everything to her, including the place in his heart that should have belonged to Ressler. Had once belonged to Ressler. 

What is he supposed to tell her?

“The irony is, all the drugs they pumped in me, this is the best I’ve felt all week.”

Ressler doesn’t want to die.

He just doesn’t know what his options are anymore.

+++++

The boy looks good in soft cotton.

Not the normal stiff, starched business shirts he normally wears, those cheap, off-the-rack suits that somehow still manage to flatter his body. No, Donald wore something casual today, something he probably uses on the weekends or whenever it is he actually switches off - Reddington doesn’t think he’s ever met any fed more uptight than his mate.

But then, that’s probably his fault.

It’s been dead between them for decades. Or at least, it should have been. Reddington should have been free of this bond but he held on to too much; couldn’t give it all up.

It all went wrong, because he was being selfish.

Hoped - after that last treatment, his mate’s name sloughing dead from his hand, his precious little boy - that maybe they could still have a future. That maybe he’d live long enough to leave this behind and find Donald.

The doctors had been explicit; he had to be firm. Had to hold the right mental state. A soul bond is far more than a physical phenomenon. It couldn’t be resolved on a mere physical level.

Reddington had thought himself mentally resolved, but in the end, he wavered for a moment. Lost his way.

That’s why he aches, and the brat feels _nothing_.

That’s how Donald can hate him while he can’t let go.

That’s what made it possible for Donald to almost assassinate him, on more than one occasion, while Reddington can still feel the chain from the Factory around Donald’s neck, the phantom pains in Donald’s leg, like it’s his own.

Soulmates? Perish the thought. Their connection’s as deformed as Donald’s hand.

The best thing about being done with this whole Fulcrum business is going to be leaving Donald behind. Being able to forget about him again. Pretend like his soulmate is living out his existence happily blank, under the impression his mate died, free to live his own life and make his own choices, just like the doctors fucking _promised_ Reddington. They’d sworn, up and down, that would be the result for lasering _Donald Ressler_ off his palm.

He really should look them up.

They really do need to know what they’ve done.

How badly they screwed the pooch.

He’d been trying to save his mate. Wanted to make sure, no matter else happened, he wasn’t going to find himself in some basement somewhere, screaming into a gag while some asshole with a knife cut a boy apart in front of him. He’d left his wife and child to save them, so they couldn’t be used like that., but there would always be a record. There was - is - always a possibility one of his many, many enemies, the people who are after him, that damn cabal, could get creative. Use them. 

He figured he owed his soulmate as much protection as modern technology could provide. If he’d just burned the name off himself, it would left scars, indications that he did have a mate out there somewhere, just ripe for exploitation. And Red had heard such things were incredibly painful. His little Donny had only been seven. He didn’t want the boy to suffer. This was about making sure that he never suffered for anything that Red might find in his future, the path he was forced onto.

So he tried something he was promised would work. Dissolve the bond, erase his name, like he never was.

But it didn’t work. Clearly. And everything else he's tried - bringing Audrey back, for example - only seems to bring his boy more pain.

Now, Red would set the planet on fire, if it meant giving his Donald the life he should have had. Kill anybody he needed to kill. Of course, Donald doesn’t like it with Red kills people - Red knows this, has learned to live with the sour taste of disappointment (that’s never his own) that fills his mouth every time he puts a bullet in someone - but Reddington’s starting to get desperate. 

He doesn’t know how to help. Doesn’t know where to even begin.

And Donald won’t leave him the hell alone.

Why won’t the boy just leave him _alone_?

“I’m coming with you,” he insists, falling in alongside Reddington. Like he belongs there.

Which he does.

But doesn’t.

“No you’re not.” He is so tired of this.

“She’s my partner. You might need a hand from this side of the law to clear her name.”

And that’s some bullshit if Reddington’s ever heard it. “You open your mouth, Donald, and hay flies out,” he says, trying to shut this down. He does not want to spend sixteen hours on a plane with this boy. It’s so hard not to touch him. So hard to be this close and have to hold himself back. He’d never imagined, before, it would be this hard. “You look and feel and smell like cop. You are what you are. It’s admirable. But this is my world, and you’re a tourist. You blink wrong and we’re both dead and your partner goes to prison.”

The words hit home. 

He can see the hurt in Donald’s eyes. 

He’s been trying to explain it to the boy for _years_ ; ever since he found himself naked in an interrogation room with a disembodied voice giving shape to his worst nightmares. 

_This is Special Agent Donald Ressler._

He’d heard there was a young Agent Ressler on his trail. Maybe even part of that ridiculous hit squad. Intel was hard to come by on US black ops personnel, even for a man with Reddington’s connections, but he was an expert in sniffing the truth out of rumors. 

And then there was Brussels, that afternoon in Brussels, when he could _feel_ his mate, feel so many things he hadn’t felt in so, so long...

But.

Reddington hadn’t been one hundred percent sure - hadn’t let himself believe it - until Anslo Garrick. Until the box. Until his boy lay dying in front of him, refusing to respond to what gentleness Red had been able to offer. Until Red coaxed his glove off.

Saw the mess he'd made. The scars he'd left behind.

Of course his soul mate - his baby boy, the name that burst into life one night in a submarine hot bunk, a supernova of possibility he'd never thought he'd have - would turn out to be a cop. A cop with a massive hard-on for seeing Reddington spend the rest of his life behind bars. A cop who genuinely doesn’t care if Reddington dies, a cop who tried to kill him. More than once. A cop who doesn’t feel what Reddington feels. A cop who can’t feel anything.

Of course.

And still, here Red is. Trying. Wanting.

Hell, he’d come out of hiding, given himself up, for this. A chance at this.

Like there’s something on the other side of that bond that could still bloom. A seed. 

Anything but the horrific rejection scar that mars the boy’s left palm. 

An epitaph, to what might have been.

Had Reddington not destroyed himself.

He wishes... but all he can do is lie. Lie and lie and lie and lie some more.

Pretend like he doesn’t care, when the sight of blood on Donald’s skin is enough to send him into a panic.

_Listen to me this time, you stubborn idiot, listen to me. I can’t take you with me. You can’t be part of this. I can’t risk you._

But true to form, the boy doesn’t back down. Never does. It’s that righteous streak in him, that need he has for order and justice and... and whatever it is in him that lets him override what should be between them. 

Reddington knows this is all for the best. He’s a selfish bastard, though. Still _needs_. 

And hell, even Hitler had a soulmate. 

“I’ll keep my mouth shut and stay out of the way.”

And thank god, Lizzy shows up before Reddington says something he knows he’ll regret.

+++++

Red is quiet, on the flight out.

He’s equally quiet on the flight back.

Germany. The only other time Ressler was here, it was because of Reddington. Because of Keen. It’d be sad, except this is his life and this is what he gets, and he’ll live with it if he has to.

It’s getting easier to just... live with things. 

Not better. But easier.

“You did well today,” Reddington finally says, as he’s pouring them a couple of drinks at the back service station.

Ressler takes the proffered tumbler, when it comes, with a soft snort. “Yeah, right. Your pet FBI agent. Bet you loved that.”

“It has a certain appeal.”

“I’m not wearing a collar for you.”

“Shame.” And Reddington’s eyes rake his body. “You’d look good in a collar.”

Their banter isn’t normally this overtly sexual. Normally, the only way through Reddington’s bluster is straight through, but right now, Ressler’s tired. Not just from this trip, although it’s been exhausting. He’s tired with a weariness that’s bone deep, decades old.

Today felt good. Felt _right_ , working with the man who was supposed to be his mate on a case, like he was a partner, like he was _wanted_ , and Ressler wishes he had stayed in DC. 

He’s tired of dealing with this.

He’s tired of being the only one of them who cares about _them_. 

“Well, I’m not yours, am I?” he says, firm as he can, and sets the drink aside so he can peel off his glove. He’s still got his mechanic’s gloves on from the raid, and the polyester peels reluctantly from his skin. “You made damn sure of that.”

Reddington flinches like he’s been slapped. “That’s not necessary, Donald.”

“You did this,” he repeats, because Reddington isn’t even bothering to deny it. “You did this to me.”

And Reddington actually closes his eyes. “Donald...”

“I was seven,” he snaps. “Seven years old, and you burned me al-“

“Burned? What do you mean?” Reddington asks sharply, cutting into Ressler’s building rage.

“Remember when I got shot? This was worse. Woke up screaming. Took me months to stop hurting.”

Reddington’s going an odd shade of gray. And in some sick way, it’s carthartic, seeing the man who abandoned him have some kind of reaction. “Donald, you must understand...”

“I understand that being your soulmate has destroyed my entire life. That I spent my entire childhood knowing I would never, ever have a chance at real love and not knowing why somebody would hate me enough to damn me to that. That I’m the poor bastard who has the cosmic misfortune to be the one person on the planet Raymond Reddington is compatible with, a fucking psychopath, and now, he won’t even look at me! Why won’t you fucking look at me?!”

Reddington opens his mouth. Closes it. Leans forward. His jacket is on the back of another seat, his tie undone, collar unbuttoned. His gloves are gone, banished to the side board. He looks undone. “I’m not a psychopath,” he says, more defensive than Ressler has ever heard him before. “That is a very narrow and very misused clinic term that refers to a person who cannot feel human emotion. I assure you, there are entire ecosystems of agony in my skull.”

Ressler just stares at him. “What, because you cried once or twice when Agent Keen got hurt?”

“They told me it wouldn’t hurt you,” Reddington says softly. “I was promised it wouldn’t hurt you. I didn’t want you to hurt.” Ressler doesn’t pull away from the hand that reaches out for his. Reddington’s fingers are soft, gentle, on the ruined skin of his palm. But there’s no whisper of connection, no tingle of electricity, like everyone always talks about. “My intention was to spare you from all of this. If I’d known...”

“You just can’t help yourself, can you? Fucking with my life...” Ressler draws in a deep breath. “Should have been our life. Yours and mine.”

His mate’s eyes are haunted. “I know.”

“You did this to us.”

“I know.”

“I hate you,” he says, voice wavering, a swell of something he’s never felt threatening to drown his better sense. There’s no conviction in his words, but it feels good to see the pain they raise in Reddington’s eyes. “You selfish fuck.”

“No, you don’t,” Reddington says, and touches his cheek. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”

 _Please_. It’s the first time Ressler has ever heard this man say that word. And between that, and the hands on him, and the closeness, it’s getting hard to remember why he can’t let himself have this.

“I was just a kid...”

“One I desperately wished to save.”

“But you didn’t. You didn’t save me, Red. And we still ended up here. Look at us. What the fuck are we doing?”

“If I could go back, Donald...”

“But we can’t. It’s done.” He lays a hand over Reddington’s, tapping the back of his palm. “You took this away from us. You took _us_ away from me.”

It doesn’t take but a tag for Reddington to pull him to his feet. Pull Ressler towards him. The same direction Ressler’s been moving his entire life, maybe. 

“There’s no harm then,” Reddington whispers, and they’re close now. Close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss. “My Donald.”

“I’m not yours,” Ressler protests quietly, but he can’t stop himself - doesn’t want to stop himself - from sliding into his mate’s lap, knees wedged in tight to the plush jet seat. He’s trying to hold himself back, but all his defenses are crumbling. All his better sense is failing. It feels so _good_.

And then Reddington turns Ressler’s left hand around, pressing a kiss straight into the middle of his palm.

Ressler melts.

This is a jet, and there’s no good place, no space, to spread out, fuck properly. This really should be left for a bed. But it’s been too long - too long apart, too long together - and neither one of them is going to be able to wait for that. Ressler can feel Reddington’s own desire in his teeth, a frantic need for connection.

It occurs to Ressler, as Reddington fumbles his shirt off and over his head, that Reddington’s been hurting just as much as he has.

Reddington’s _missed_ him.

Deep down, in the quiet waters of his heart, Reddington’s wanted this too.

Amazingly, Reddington doesn’t have slick on the plane - this he admits in gasping breaths, tormenting the skin below Ressler’s ear with his teeth - nor anything that he’s willing to try. “Don’t want to hurt you,” he murmurs, as they rut against each other like teenagers on the floor of his private jet.

Ressler laughs and digs the flesh of his fingers into Reddington’s back, arching into him. “Can’t be worse than what you’ve already done.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Reddington whispers, and shuts his mouth with a searing kiss. 

There will be time to map each other’s bodies; space to lay one another out and explore. Take it slow or rough or fast or hard or sweet; whatever suits their fancy that day. Now isn’t really the time for that.

Right now, Ressler just needs to feel his mate come. Sex for Ressler had always been a utilitarian task, an exercise in mutual masturbation - even with Audrey, even though he loved her deeply - but this is so much more. They’re barely doing more than rubbing against each other, still half-clothed, but it’s so, so much more than anything he’s ever experienced. As much as he’d like to have Reddington buried inside of him right now, he’s not sure if he could handle it.

He wraps a hand around their cocks, catching them both at just the right angle, the right moment in their movements, drawing a full body shudder out of Reddington.

And.

“Oh my boy,” his mate groans, bucking up into his hand, holding on like Ressler is going to disappear at any moment. “My precious boy. I thought you didn’t... didn’t want me.”

Ressler takes Reddington’s face in both hand and kisses him, rolling over so he’s on his back, so he can hook his legs around the back of his mate’s thighs. Ruts up into him, interrupting the rhythm hips seem to be settling into. 

“I didn’t,” he murmurs. 

_But now..._

Reddington slides his hands up Ressler’s arms, all the way, so their finger knot together. He levers up, cock brushing along the underside of Ressler’s own, across his perineum, tantalizingly close to his entrance. “And now you do,” he says.

“Smug bastard,” Ressler laughs, and thrusts up against him.

It all falls apart after that - or comes together, depending on a guy’s point of view. No more words are exchanged, arousal driving them both past such things. It’s artless but infinitely tender; rough but so, so careful. Reddington is relentless, setting a punishing pace that scatters fire shooting under Ressler’s skin and white sparks through his vision. There’s something boiling between them, just under the surface, too far down yet to break open yet, but it’s there, it’s there, it’s...

He comes with a shameless plea, falling apart in the middle of another desperate kiss, helplessly rolling up against Reddington as Reddington holds him down, gasping into his shoulder. Ressler lets himself float along in the afterglow, enveloped in the sensation of his mate’s arms around him, his mate’s lips on his shoulder, his mate... there.

How many mistakes have they made with each other, over the years? How deeply have they failed one another?

Reddington sighs into Ressler’s hair, and Ressler lets it go.

He lays there on the floor in the tatters of his shirt, listening to the dull roar of jet engines through the thin, noise-dampening carpet, eyes closed. The cool air is heavy with the scent of their love-making. His mate’s hands are in his hair, on his body, feathering across his overheated skin. Caressing him. Like he’s something precious. 

Ressler never realized, until this moment, how broken he’s been. He knew he was wrong before. But now...

His palm is clean. The scarring is gone. 

His mate’s name is back. His name is back on his mate.

Their bond is settling in the back of his mind. In both of them. Deep down, where emotion dwells.

It’s not as overwhelming as he was told that it would be, the way Dad always described it. Ressler can sense Reddington, but not fully. But it’s far more than Ressler’s ever had. So maybe there was something left. Maybe Reddington - doing this out of some twisted sense of love, instead of hate - couldn’t commit to breaking their bond entirely. Maybe you simply can’t destroy something that hasn’t budded out yet.

He’s whole. For the first time in his life, he’s whole.

He’d always thought it might be terrible, being bonded to a man like Reddington. But there’s more going on in Reddington than what he’s seen on the surface, far more. A lifetime’s worth of secrets to explore. A lifetime of tragedy to soothe away.

It’s daunting, this bond. Always has been.

Yet Ressler feels very much at peace.

“I can’t walk in there tomorrow,” he finally says, the words bubbling up from deep down. “Keep this up. Pretend I hate you.”

“You do kind of hate me,” Reddington says with a slight chuckle.

Ressler shakes his head. “They’re gonna see this,” he says and holds up his palm.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, love, but the ancients invented a lovely garment called the glove...”

“You know what I mean,” Ressler says, more sharply, and looks back over his shoulder. “How do we hide this?”

“Who says we have to hide this?”

“I won’t keep my job. They will try to make me use this against you. You’ll want me to use it against them.”

“Then we don’t have to go back. We can go anywhere we want.”

“Keen...”

“Like I said in the warehouse, the message was delivered. We’ve done all we can.” Reddington kisses his shoulder. “We can go anywhere we’d like. Just let me know.”

“My mom...”

“Hmm?”

“My mom said I had to bring you to dinner, if I ever met you. She wants to give you a piece of her mind, I think.”

“Well, wouldn’t that be fun?” 

Ressler doesn’t tell Reddington to have Dembe change course. Take them somewhere new. Somewhere else.

Reddington just knows.

That’s the funny thing about having a soulmate.


End file.
